Are you wondering if it’s possible to foster a strong remote working culture among work-from-home employees? How do you connect your team members successfully? These are some questions that plenty of work-from-home managers are trying to wrap their heads around.
We all know the importance of a positive working culture among colleagues. That’s pretty much easier to achieve in office set-up, right? But it isn’t impossible to forge strong connections and create a culture of positive work between remote team members. Sure, there may be challenges, but all these can be overcome with the right online solutions and mindset.
Ready to delve into happier working connections from home? Connect your team and build your unique company culture today with our tips!
What is Work Culture?
Work culture is defined as an organisation’s shared goals, values, attitudes, and practices. It can also include the company’ set of social practices and conventions. Culture is a strong connection experienced by employees as they bond together over similar attitudes, interests, and priorities.
It is a culture that enables colleagues to work effectively towards the realisation of the company’s mutual goals. In turn, work culture can also determine how successful your company is going to be.
Work cultures are deeply rooted in a company’s implementation of its core values. When employees start to see the core values penetrating through their workplaces, they transform into advocates who know exactly why they work and how their work can impact the lives of those around them.
Deep and strong working cultures are forged in time through shared experiences between colleagues. A sense of belonging and purpose arises from team members who spend time working together at the office.
But this doesn’t mean remote employees can’t foster a strong working culture just because they don’t spend time together in a physical office! A remote working culture can definitely be cultivated even when your employees are all based on their respective homes.
Why Do Companies Need a Strong Remote Working Culture?
We can’t stress this enough: A strong working culture is one of the keys to a successful company. This is also true for organisations operating on a work-from-home setup.
Culture binds your team together and allows them to work cohesively with one set of shared values, goals, and responsibilities. Culture allows your team members to:
- View their respective roles in the organisation
- See how they fit in with their team’s overall work position
- Build trust within themselves and between their remote team members
- Adjust their work mindset and behaviours to work towards common goals with confidence and mutual comfort
- Become continuously proactive members of your team
Remote employees need to foster a positive culture among themselves to keep their team running smoothly. A great culture forged with trust, mutual respect, and care for the organisation will surely drive up the remotely-controlled company to greater heights.
Ways to Foster a Strong Remote Working Culture
1. Instil and understand the value of working remotely.
Does your remote team understand why you all work remotely?
Your employees should understand the reasons behind your decision to form a remote team. They should also learn and appreciate each colleague’s reasons for choosing the work-from-home setup.
By instilling in your team the values of remote work, they’ll come to terms with it easier. This is especially true for team members who aren’t used to the work-from-home setup.
What comes out of all these is a team that mutually respects each other by knowing why remote work is valuable for themselves, for their colleagues, and your entire organisation.
2. Come up with strong company values or recreate your existing ones.
A company needs values to drive up their culture in a steady direction. Values are also significant because they can:
- Establish a company’s unique culture
- Provide workers with a sense of commitment
- Create a sense of purpose
- Pull team members into one cohesive unit
- Impact your business decisions and strategies
- Attract the right talent to your growing team
Take the time to discuss company values with your remote team. You can redefine any existing values to better suit your changing organisation needs, especially for teams who recently moved into a work-from-home setup.
Remote work shouldn’t hinder your team from defining your unique company values. You can even boost your employees’ productivity, morale, motivation, and advocacies when they understand and take to heart the core values you all live by.
3. Document and spread the word about your values and culture.
So, you’ve already determined your unique company values. Pen these values down and create an inspiring document that clearly delineates your remote company’s values and the culture you all wish to cultivate.
A lot of people think that establishing values and culture ends in a simple list. But you can do more than that!
Crafting a well-written document that specifies all your group’s values – and distributing it to all team members through an online communication channel such as HomeSquad’s solutions – allows your remote team to grasp your organisation’s culture despite minimal to no face time with other team members.
A lot of people think that establishing values and culture ends in a simple list. That shouldn’t be the case for you! Crafting a well-written document that specifies all your group’s values – and distributing it to all team members through email – allows your remote team to grasp your organisation’s culture despite minimal to no face time with other team members.
4. Promote transparency in communication and feedback.
Gone are the days when employees cannot voice out their feedback to managers for fear of being loomed upon by bad working luck. Nowadays, open communication and feedback-gaining are becoming the norm in all workplaces, including remote work arrangements.
Encourage your remote team to communicate their concerns and feedback in a respectful but honest way. Open communication has a host of benefits for organisations, including:
- Building trust amongst employees and managers
- Heightened employee engagement
- Better recognition of both pain points and positive work amongst employees
- Keeping employee and company goals on track
Communicate with your team using non-formal but respectable and straightforward language. Establish regular employee check-ins and keep conversations more casual as opposed to awkward formal appraisals. Employees must warm up to you and their other team members to improve productivity and eliminate intimidation.
5. Encourage frequent communication.
Transparency in communication isn’t enough. You need to encourage your team to frequently communicate and interact with each other virtually. That’s because isolation is amongst the main productivity killers that work-from-home employees struggle with.
It doesn’t matter whether a team member is introverted or extroverted. A culture of open and frequent communication helps in a myriad of ways such as:
- Fostering positive rapport between team members
- Improving work morale
- Establishing lasting positive relationships with team members
- Developing a strong sense of teamwork
- Reduces unhealthy group competition, allowing members to work together and not against each other
Frequent communication allows your team to know each other better, determine each other’s goals, and work harmoniously towards mutual goals for the betterment of everyone. It also naturally brings out your company’s culture and makes it more known to all of you.
Try the following activities to encourage frequent communication:
- Schedule daily video call check-ins, even just for a few minutes
- Create dedicated channels for work-related stuff and water cooler banters in communication tools or project management apps such as HomeSquad
- Welcome new hires by circulating emails introducing them to the team and encouraging team members to interact with them
The right mindset and techniques can help you establish a strong remote working culture within your organisation. A clear set of values, team awareness, and open and frequent communication are keys to unlocking your organisation’s unique culture that will drive you all up to success despite a remote working arrangement.
Interested in improving your remote team’s work culture? HomeSquad can help you foster your unique work culture by offering budget-friendly solutions for team management, communication, and remote monitoring. Check out our solutions or request a free demo today!
